Roosevelt asks free hand for U.S. delegate to League
Isolationists singled out as main targets of bitter criticism
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
New York – (Oct. 21)
President Roosevelt, climaxing a rain-drenched campaign tour of New York’s major boroughs, tonight demanded in a speech before the Foreign Policy Association that the American delegate to the United Nations Council be given in “advance” power to act with other nations in enforcing peace even by force, if necessary.
The President said such authority must be granted if the post-war “world organization is to have any reality at all.”
And at the same time, he denied that any “secret treaties or any secret guarantees” had been developed by Secretary of State Cordell Hull or him. He added a promise that none would be developed.
In a lengthy analysis of this country’s international position as he sees it and particularly referring to keeping the peace after the present conflict ends, Mr. Roosevelt said:
It is clear that, if the world organization is to have any reality at all, our representative must be endowed in advance by the people themselves, by constitutional means through their representatives in Congress, with authority to act.
At the same time, the President restated the principle of unconditional surrender, saying that once Germany is defeated “we shall not leave them a single element of military power – or of potential military power.”
He said:
**As for Germany, that tragic nation which has sown the wind and is now reaping the whirlwind, we and our Allies are entirely agreed that we shall not bargain with the Nazi conspirators, or leave them a shred of control – open or secret – of the instruments of government.
Mr. Roosevelt said that the Allies had “rejected” the possibility of coming “to terms” with Germany and Japan because “the decision not to bargain with the tyrants rose from the hearts and souls and sinews of the American people. They faced reality; they appraised reality; and they knew what freedom meant.”
Isolationists assailed
Mr. Roosevelt was bitterly critical of the “isolationist” attitude of Republicans in Congress, saying:
If the Republicans were to win control of the Congress in this election, inveterate isolationists would occupy positions of commanding influence and power.
He singled out in this category Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA) and Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND) and he went on to call the roll of ranking Republicans on the House side, asking his audience:
Can anyone really suppose that these isolationists have changed their minds about world affairs? Politicians who embrace the policy of isolationism – or who never raised their voices against it in our days of peril – are not reliable custodians of the future of America.
The President admitted there had been Democrats in the same isolationist camp, “but they have been few and far between, and they have not attained positions of leadership.”
There were several boos during the President’s speech, especially when he expressed thanks that his administration did not have the support of the “isolationist… McCormick- Patterson-Hearst-Gannett press,” and when he mentioned Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-NY).
Another vociferous boo came when Mr. Roosevelt mentioned Senator Nye.
Tours city in rain
Mr. Roosevelt spoke in the main ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria after touring Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan in an open car for more than four hours during the morning and getting himself thoroughly soaked in a driving rain that followed him throughout the day.
The President opened his address by citing the Republican record on international affairs.
He said:
The majority of the Republican members of the Congress voted against the Selective Service Law in 1940; they voted against repeal of the arms embargo in 1939; they voted against Lend-Lease in 1941 and they voted in August 1941 against extension of Selective Service, which meant voting against keeping our Army together – four months before Pearl Harbor.
Council for peace described
In discussing the pattern of the United Nations Council to keep the peace, the President said “peace, like war, can succeed only where here is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it.”
He added:
The Council must have the power to act quickly and decisively to keep the peace by force, if necessary.
The President assured the American people that he and Secretary of State Hull were “thoroughly conversant with the Constitution” and knew they could not “commit the nation to any secret treaties or any secret guarantees in violation of that Constitution.”
‘No secret agreements’
He asserted that “no secret agreements” had been made and that the issue involving agreements of this sort – as put forth by Governor Dewey – was “between my veracity and the continuing assertions of those who have no responsibility im the foreign field – or, perhaps I should say, a field foreign to them.”
Mr. Roosevelt, discussing the fate of a completely defeated Germany, said “we bring no charge against the German race, as such,” but “there is going to be stern punishment for all those in Germany directly responsible for this agony of mankind.”
He said flatly “the German people are not going to be enslaved, because the United Nations do not traffic in human slavery.” But he said, “It will be necessary for them to earn their way back into the fellowship of peace-loving and law-abiding nations.”
Mr. Roosevelt charged that in the years following 1920, Republican foreign policy was “dominated by the heavy hand of isolationism;” and that “much of the strength of our Navy was scuttled – and some of the Navy’s resources were handed over to friends in private industry – as in the unforgettable case of Teapot Dome.”
The President went on to recall his record and the record of Secretary Hull, “against Republican opposition,” to prepare the country for an international emergency and improve its foreign relations.